Match.com Profile has been around for two decades, but it’s still considered to be one of the best dating sites around. With so many changes going on with online dating, it’s time to take at how you can get more dates with a compelling Match.com profile. But, before we dive into your profile, let’s answer some important questions about whether or not Match.com is the best dating app for you, which membership plan will give you an edge over the competition, and whether “Boosting” your profile is actually worth it.

Should I Join Match.com?

One of the first things I do when I talk to new clients is figuring out their needs and dating goals so we can place them on the best dating apps for their needs. If this sounds like you, Match.com is the dating app you should be on.

You are looking for something more than just a casual date

Are between the ages of 34-70*

You are looking for dating profiles with more information than what you’ve been seeing on Tinder and Bumble

You are willing to make the first move (That means sending an actual message, not just a like)

If you’re under 34, most of the people you will be looking for are going to be on Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, or CMB. Match is a for a more serious dater, but not as serious as something like eHarmony. I’d never recommend it to anyone looking for casual dating, but if you are looking for anything from dating through marriage, it’s a great dating app. With that said, you really have to be willing to make the first move on Match, regardless of whether you are a man or a woman. Match.com dating profiles give you a lot more information than you’ll get on a swipe app, use it to find people you want to meet and reach out to them!

Which Membership Level Should I Use on Match.com?

Match is a paid dating site. You can join for free, but you can’t send or receive messages without paying. Sure, they say they have free messaging, but is something you can only use five times over the course of your entire membership, and it isn’t guaranteed that the other person can message you back. So, if you want an edge over most of the people on Match, you want the premium membership plan. In fact, I recommend using the 6-month plan. 12 months is a long time to commit to a dating site. Also, if you call them directly, they will usually give you the 12-month rate of $19.99 with the 6-month plan.

The big benefit of the premium plan is this: Premium members can tell who else is a paid member!

If you are a standard-level paid member, you can’t tell who is on Match as a paid member and who is on as a free member. That means when you send someone a message, there’s a good chance that they’ll never get it. When a free member is sent a message, they don’t see the message or who it is from. Instead, they get a system-generated email that says “Someone just sent you a message! If you want to see who it’s from and what it says, subscribe now!”

Let’s be honest, if they haven’t paid to become a subscriber yet, getting a system-generated email saying that someone unknown to them has sent them a message is probably not going to make a difference. When you are a premium member, other paid members will have the word “Subscriber” listed on their profile. That means you don’t have to waste time sending messages to people who will never get them!

Is Match.com’s Boost Feature Worth It?

Nope!

Boosting your profile pushes it to the top of the search results for one hour and it is a complete waste.

Think of it this way. Your best chance of success on a dating site is going to come from messaging someone, not from getting messages. One of the biggest complaints that people have on dating sites is that 99% of the messages they get come from people they don’t want to meet. If you are focused on who is messaging you, you only get to choose from what the tide drags in. Forget the boost and start being more proactive!

How to Write a Compelling Match.com Profile in 2022?

Now that we’ve covered some of the basics, let’s get into the profile. I’ve learned a lot in the 18 years that I’ve been helping people with their dating profiles, and it’s amazing how many of the same problems still keep popping up.  Here are five rules you need to follow if you want to have the kind of Match.com profile that makes people want to know you.

1. Stop Selling

One of the biggest dating profile mistakes people make is thinking that they have to sell themselves, but the truth is, no one wants to feel like they are being sold to. The second someone reading your profile feels like they are getting a sales pitch they lose trust in you. Instead of thinking of your profile as an ad, think of it as a window. Give people a window into your life, let them know what it’s like to spend a day with you, or the things that make you really happy.  paint them a picture that they want to be a part of, don’t just try to close a deal.

2. Keep it short (But not too short) – Match.com Profile

When it comes to Match.com profiles, size matters. If you are coming from apps like Tinder or Bumble, you’re used to size limits as small as 400 characters. If you try using a profile like that on Match, people will just ignore you. It looks like you aren’t willing to put in any effort and like you are probably just looking for a hookup. With that said, it’s very easy to go too far in the other direction. Match gives you a lot of space, too much space. You could write a 4,000-character profile if you wanted to. That’s close to 700 words. Of course, no one will read it, but you could do it.

You want a profile that is long enough to show who you are and what you are looking for, but not so long that reading it feels like a homework assignment. We’ve been experimenting and fine-tuning for nearly two decades, and we’ve found that the sweet spot for a Match.com profile is somewhere between 150-225 words. There’s a little bit of wiggle room, but that really is the ideal range. If you drift past 300 words, most people just won’t read it, and if you drop below 100, it puts you back in Tinder territory.

3. People want cake, not ingredients

“I’m adventurous, funny, passionate, intelligent, and honest…” Those are all great things to be, but they are just words with no context to give them meaning. They are cocoa powder, eggs, sugar, and flour when people want a slice of cake! There’s no reason to waste someone’s time with adjectives when you can give them life through examples.

Here’s a quick story from a client I had a few years back. Several years ago, I was helping a very sweet 48-year-old woman with her profile when she asked me if we could put in that she’s adventurous. I told her no, but that I’d love to hear about some of her recent adventures.

She went on to tell me that she had spent the previous summer backpacking The Great Wall of China by herself. In the end, her profile never used the word adventure, but it did talk about her experience. Now, instead of just having a vague adjective, people saw a woman who was adventurous, loved to travel, was brave, and was willing to step out of her comfort zone. A little bit of context adds meaning and flavor.

4. Beware of creeping baggage – Match.com Profile

Your profile has to be about moving forward, but it can be very easy for problems we’ve had in past relationships to creep into our profile. In fact, I can tell how more than half of my clients’ last relationships ended just by reading their old dating profiles. There are a lot of things that we all want in a relationship, but that we should never have to ask for because they are considered to be things that all decent humans should already be.

We all want an honest partner, but if you have to ask for one, it just makes it look like you are still getting over being lied to. We want someone who will be faithful, but if you have to mention that you want someone faithful, monogamous, or loyal, it just sounds like you are getting over being cheated on. Never ask for something in your profile that no one would ever ask for the opposite of.

One big area where your baggage can come through is with dating profiles for single parents and widows/widowers. If you are a single parent, there is no reason to EVER mention your ex in your profile. It makes it sound like you are either still emotionally entangled with your ex or that there is a lot of drama going on with your situation. Meanwhile, if you’ve lost a spouse, mentioning them doesn’t honor them as much as it makes any prospective new partner feel like they are going to be competing for your affection with their memory. It’s not fair to you and it isn’t fair to them.

5. Don’t worry about the competition

There are millions of singles on dating sites and apps every second of every day and it is easy to feel like you are competing with half of them to connect with the people you want to meet. As a result, we focus too hard on trying to outshine our competition. We want to show how funny, clever, smart, and exciting we are. That oftentimes means that we don’t put enough emphasis on who we are, the things we love, and what we are looking for.

The truth is that you are not competing against anyone for a date. You are trying to connect with an individual. If you don’t have a connection with them and someone else does, you didn’t lose out to them. You never had them. Compatibility is not simple. If it was, you wouldn’t be reading this, and I wouldn’t have spent. The last 18 years of my life helping people with online dating. This isn’t a numbers game or a contest where you have to show you are the best. This is about taking the time to find the people with whom you share actual compatibility and then making sure you present yourself in a way that sets you up for the best possible chance of a connection.

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Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help – Match.com Profile

We just went over a lot. You know the membership plan to sign up for on Match.com, some of the rules for writing a great. Match.com profile, and you even know how to decide if Match.com is the right dating site for you. Now it’s time to put all of that together and create your profile. For some people it’s easy, but for most people, it’s really hard. If it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to earn my living helping people with it for the last 18 years.

Even if you are a great writer, writing about yourself can be a big challenge. That’s why authors don’t write their own bios in their books. That gets handled by the marketing department. Over the years I’ve had authors of New York Times best-selling books and journalists for major newspapers as clients. They came to me because they were too close to themselves to get out of their own way. That’s what I do. I help you get out of your own way, so people can see how great you really are.